Yesterday in New York City, Electronic Arts held a special event focused on [gay] issues in gaming. And it happened mostly because the company itself was willing to face its own stumbles in presenting gay characters in its video games.

The impetus for Thursday's Full Spectrum event-co-sponsored by the Entertainment Software Association and the Human Rights Council-began after the controversy surrounding the addition of Makeb, the so-called (not by EA) "gay planet" to the company's massive online game Star Wars: The Old Republic.

When I spoke to the folks from EA who were at the event yesterday, they all acknowledged that the publisher had "stepped in it" with Makeb.

"It," in this case, is the sudden controversy that erupted when they added same-sex romance options to The Old Republic.

From one corner of the internet, the publisher was getting blasted by anti-gay activists who felt offended by the inclusion of Makeb. And criticism came from gay advocates, too, who felt annoyed at having to pay for access to a place where those romance options were possible, though segregated from the rest of the game's universe.

According to VP of corporate communications Jeff Brown, it was the intensity and volume of the response that made EA decide to hold a forum where LGBT issues in both the creation and playing of games could be discussed.

Brown's colleague Craig Hagen was one of the organizers of Full Spectrum. While he acknowleged the pride he felt in EA creating a place like Makeb or allowing same-sex relationships to happen in their Mass Effect games, Hagen also said the company could have done better in crafting those options. Mass Effect didn't allow for male same-sex relationships until Mass Effect 3 and Makeb was added to The Old Republic more than a year after the online game's launch.

Hagen describes EA as a progressively tolerant workplace but a studio that still is learning how to do things right. "Ten years ago, it was very easy for me to move into the EA Sports studio [where Hagen works out of], to identify as a gay man, and to bring my partner to studio and company events without any experience whatsoever of homophobia. I saw the same sex relationship benefits that EA offered when I was hired."

"I was involved with the development of the transgender policy that EA adopted," Hagen continued. "I was around when Sims [included] same gender content. I saw all of that. Then when something like Mass Effect or the latest episode of Star Wars occurs, I just stand back and go, even as progressive as EA is, we still make mistakes and we still have a long way to go."

I asked Hagen what he would say to LGBT players who feel embattled in an online game like Battlefield 3. How would he tell them to hold on? "I don't know that you tell them," he answered. "I think you have to demonstrate to them...by the encouragement and the continual development of additional LGBT storylines in our products. The reinforcement inside of EA that this is an environment where you need to feel comfortable, free, and open to develop the right kind of storyline, the appropriate storyline that not only reflects the developer community but reflects the gamer and the consumer community out there."

It's not an "it gets better kind of message" then, I posited. It's a matter of actively making it better?

"Yeah," Hagen said. "That's the point of what [journalist and Full Spectrum panelist] Hilary Rosen made: it's not about defending ourselves, it's about defining ourselves. We recognize we're not perfect. No one is perfect. We're going to make mistakes. When we make a mistake let's learn from it and let's get better."

***

I threw a generalization about competitive online gamers at another Full Spectrum panelist Matt Bromberg, who helped found eSports company Major League Gaming before becoming general manager at BioWare Austin. Because of the hyper-aggressive nature on online gaming, it would seem that the players who spent the most time in the hothouses of FPS lobbies would be more likely to lob offensive epithets like "[gay]" to their opponents. But Bromberg said that wasn't the case. "My experience was the opposite," he countered. "I think the more skilled and hardcore a gamer is, when they get really good, their interest in spending time griefing people or doing really anything other than playing at a super high level drops to almost zero."

During the panel that Bromberg participated in, the idea was put forth that RPGs are a genre where progressive inclusion of gay characters and storyline possibilties can happen easily, because those games are all about options and crafting a virtual identity. I asked Bromberg if there was anything stopping a same-sex romance from being the main path, and not just a secondary option.

"I don't think anything does," he answered. "I think it goes back to, `What's the authentic story being told?' You're fighting off a race of machine creatures who are going to destroy the world? That's probably the main story. I think underneath that story, there's all kinds of combatants with all sorts of preferences. But I don't think anything stops it other than someone writing a game where it's authentic and meaningful and can sustain a whole game."

EA's done some crappy things in the past, but I'm glad they're taking this route. I think the fact that they've included same-sex relationships in their games is a pretty big step, along with Lionhead and Bethesda.

I'm not trying to give off an anti LGBT vibe, but this sounds like EA trying to hide behind a watershed issue to try and deflect some bad PR.

I mean, yeah it's great and all that they want to represent this group and they should, but how is this going to cover the fact that they've been stripping value out of their games for long? Why care about championing one group when you can't even champion your own customers?

In all honestly...this is nice of EA but it's a dirty PR tactic to gain back the customers they have been losing for years and currently. Other developers/publishers have been supporting gay and lesbians for years. EA is just jumping on the band wagon. I'm all for gay and lesbian rights but EA should look at the big picture here. Almost every year a class action lawsuit is filed against them in federal court because they are always breaking laws or policies within the entertainment & gaming industry. How many of their games have failed in the past few years? I know I'm beating a dead horse but look at SimCity that released on March 4th. It turned out to be a complete failure because they decided to go 100% DRM. The list goes on...EA needs a complete overhaul if you ask me.

Articles like this make me think EA is about to shoehorn a bunch of LGBT stuff into games. It's bad enough that they shoehorn security into their games, along with microtransactions. This wouldn't be in issue if EA would actually spend some time on it instead of making it an "add it or we stop funding" type of deal. If they actually cared about these kinds of things then they would work with developers instead of holding a gun to their head.